Winnie: light and darkness

LOVE her or hate her, you cannot deny that Winnie Madikizela-mandela was a woman of immense stature and, like her world-famous former husband, the late Nelson Mandela, an iconic figure on the South African political stage for several decades.

Fiery, fearless, brash and brazen, she was unflinching in her defiance of the apartheid regime and kept the fires of the revolution burning during the dark days of apartheid, while her husband Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 27 long years.

The apartheid regime’s security forces were at their wits’ end on how to deal with this feisty female fighter. They put her under house arrest, banished her to the Free State dorp of Brandfort and even put her in solitary confinement, but nothing could break the fiery spirit of Winnie Mandela.

Any other woman locked up in solitary confinement, naked with not even sanitary pads and unable to see her two young daughters for 18 months would have become a nervous wreck and given up the struggle. But not Winnie.

The more the apartheid regime brutalised her, the more it hardened her resolve to fight the racist minority government.

She became the symbol of the anti-apartheid movement and inspired the youth to rise against the white rulers.

But the mother of the nation was no Mother Teresa. Years of suffering made her a hard, uncompromising woman, intolerant of any who crossed her. She advocated violence against any enemy of the struggle and even sanctioned necklace murders.

She formed the infamous Mandela United Football Club and apparently took to liquor, drugs and sleeping with younger men.

Three ugly stains marred the struggle hero’s life: the Stompie murder, her illicit affair with her lawyer and her conviction on several counts of theft and fraud (which were later overturned).

Despite these weaknesses, we cannot forget her great contribution and sacrifice to a democratic South Africa.

Had she remained an unblemished woman, she might even have won a Nobel Peace Prize.

While she remained unwavering in her commitment to the anti-apartheid struggle, she didn’t remain faithful to the world’s most famous prisoner, who loved her dearly ever since he swept her off her feet as a young lawyer in Johannesburg. She paid dearly for it. Soon after Mandela’s release, they divorced. They parted ways on Earth. Will they be reunited in Heaven? THYAGARAJ MARKANDAN Silverglen